


A Different Sort Of Whore

by EffingEden



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-14 08:58:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EffingEden/pseuds/EffingEden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard wasn't expecting to be propositioned</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Sort Of Whore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mangacrack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangacrack/gifts).



> Written for the prompt on comment_fic;
> 
> author's choice, author's choice, you get paid for leaving after it's done, not for the sex itself

He should never have let the stranger get so close to him, but the danger that seeped into the air around the tall man was of a different nature. It stirred a craving in Richard, and he suddenly understood the rhyme his mother had sung him, of the fey lords under the Hill, of their twilight lands and their unquenchable delights. Of their alluring wildness. Jessamyn had been close to it, but she had been too coarse, too blunt. This stranger was... refined in his viciousness. He wielded his tongue with the lethal skill Richard had been trained to with his sword and he wondered briefly who had taught the savage, elegant man how to parry and thrust with his words. Had he been put through the same rigours and training exercises or had he been born with it already there. 

He was looming over Richard, close enough that he could bury a dagger in Richard’s side before he’d be able to draw his own... but that was another layer of thrill that he had been _wanting_ so badly of late. There was no challenge on the Hill, no challenge in Riverside. He had been starved of it so now he savoured all he could get. 

The man looked down at him, imperious and self assured but with a madness that slid behind his eye. Perhaps he too was hunting for a challenge. 

“Don’t tell me the great St Veir is an imbecile,” the stranger sneered, his words dripping vicious humour. “Is swordfighting all you use your brain for?”

The inn was hushed before, all eyes on the Stranger as he had approached Richard, but at that the last of the whispers and murmurs stopped and there was a low hiss of air as a dozen or more of the onlookers gasped at the stranger’s daring.

They expected bloodshed. Anyone else here would make a fight of that statement. Richard let a smile twitch at his mouth. “No, but... I don’t pay for sex.”

“No?”

Richard shook his head slightly, somewhat regretfully.

“Not for the sex then, but for me to leave afterwards.” He didn’t sound desperate. If he had, Richard wouldn’t have agreed to it. It just sounded like an excuse, something the stranger could shake himself free of, later. 

St Vier didn’t ponder it over long, not wanting the strange youth to lose his nerve or for the crowd to get too excited. He had let them watch for too long already. “All right,” he said, and led the way back to his home.


End file.
